INCLUSION DAILY
EXPRESS

Your quick, once-a-day look at disability rights,
self-determination and the movement toward full community inclusion around
the world.

Monday, November 10, 2003Year IV, Edition 174

This front page features 9 news and information items,
each preceded by a number (#) symbol.Click on the"Below the Fold"
link at the bottom of this page for the rest of today's news.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:"For so many years I had to go to the back
because I'm black; now I have to go to the back because I have a
disability."--Sylvia Jacobs, a professor of African history who uses a
motorized scooter, talking to a university chancellor about the lack of
accessibility at North Carolina Central University (Fourth story)

"Until and unless the question of discrimination is entrenched in the
Constitution, we shall be paying lip service to rights and dignity of the
physically challenged."--Mirugi Kariuki, addressing Kenya's Parliament
which is in the process this week of adopting a Persons with Disabilities Bill
(Second story)

TAMPA,
FLORIDA--Johnnie Byrd, Speaker of the Florida House, has asked Pinellas County
Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird for permission to defend the law which
gave Governor Jeb Bush the authority to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube
reinserted on October 21, six days after it had been removed under the same
court's order.

Byrd asked for permission to intervene through an amicus ("friend of the
court") brief in the suit Michael Schiavo and the American Civil Liberties
Union have filed against the governor. The suit claims that the legislature and
governor did not have the constitutional authority to overturn the courts'
previous rulings which gave Mr. Schiavo permission to have Terri's gastronomy
tube removed. Mr. Schiavo, who is Terri's husband and guardian, successfully
fought through the courts for permission to remove the feeding tube that has
kept his wife alive, according to what he said would have been her wishes.

In his brief filed Monday, Byrd argued that the Florida legislature has
the authority to change state laws even if they alter previous court
rulings.

"The legislature's role in establishing public policy is paramount and
its role in regulating the actions of the other branches is significant," the
brief said.

The Speaker also argued that the legislature gave the governor
guardianship responsibilities which made it legal for him to act on Terri's
behalf.

Terri, 39, collapsed in February 1990 and her brain was without oxygen
for several minutes. Since then she has been breathing and regulating her blood
pressure on her own, but has been given food and water through the feeding tube
installed in her stomach.

The courts have accepted doctors' testimony that Terri has since been in
a "persistent vegetative state", in which she cannot feel and from which she
cannot recover. They have also accepted Mr. Schiavo's claims that his wife had
told him she would not want to be kept alive "by artificial means". Circuit
Court Judge George Greer gave him permission to have Terri's feeding tube
removed on October 15.

Disability rights advocates and right-to-die supporters flooded the
offices of the governor and legislators with over 100,000 messages expressing
outrage over Terri's starvation. The governor called a special session for the
legislature to pass "Terri's Law", which gave him permission to have the
feeding tube reinserted, and for an independent guardian to review her
circumstances.

Terri's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, claim that their daughter
laughs at jokes, turns her head, smiles, cries, tries to sit up and talk to
them. This summer, they released video clips that show Terri apparently
responding to them and even following a balloon across the room with her eyes.

Critics have said that Terri's actions recorded in the video were simply
reflex actions and that she has no consistent brain activity.

The Schindlers have affidavits from dozens of medical professionals
testifying that Terri may not be in a vegetative condition and that she might
improve if her husband would allow her to undergo the rehabilitative therapies
which he has refused for more than 10 years. The Schindlers have filed a suit
demanding that Mr. Schiavo be removed as Terri's guardian and accusing him of
abusing and neglecting his wife. They also claim that he has a number of
conflicts of interest, including a live-in relationship with another woman with
whom he has fathered two children.

Disability rights advocates have been watching Terri's situation closely
for several years. Many note that people with disabilities such as Terri's are
condemned to die because others believe they are "better off dead".

The groups have also been frustrated at the popular media's portrayal of
Terri as being "comatose" or "brain dead". Most reporters still do not
understand that her case involves disability issues -- especially a person's
right to live -- rather than a "right-to-die" case as has been presented by
Terri's husband.

NAIROBI, KENYA--Kenya's Parliament is
expected to pass a national Persons with Disabilities Bill Tuesday which would
guarantee basic civil rights and fight discrimination, The Nation news service
reported.

The proposed law would establish a National Council for Persons with
Disability with 27 members, 20 of whom must have a disability. The panel would
be charged with developing policies to ensure rights of people with
disabilities and to advise the government on ways to prevent discrimination.

The measure, which was debated in Parliament for most of last week, will
likely go through some changes before it becomes law.

Several MPs (Members of Parliament) and disability groups want the
measure to concentrate on guaranteeing rights to education, medical care,
employment, financial resources, architectural accessibility, legal assistance
and technologies to help them become more independent.

One lawmaker commented that because Kenya has had so few resources for
people with disabilities in the past, the country is in a unique position to
build services that will best serve them from the start.

In a discussion about requiring government agencies to hire a certain
percentage of their employees with disabilities, Moses Wetangula cautioned
against creating "enclaves of such workers".

"As we create facilities for the disabled, the cardinal point must be to
make them feel they are part and parcel of the society," Wetangula said.

TOKYO, JAPAN--Three Asian countries are teaming up to develop a
set of standards to make products and services user-friendly for people with
and without disabilities.

Japan, China and South Korea plan to compile "universal design"
standards over the next year with the intention of eventually having them
adopted around the world.

According to the Asahi Shimbun news service, representatives from the
three countries will meet for the first time next spring in Tokyo.

Japan will propose standards on universal design of containers and
wrappings of household products.

China is expected to propose standards for signs in public facilities,
such as restrooms and elevators. Beijing, China, is slated to host the 2008
Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The countries are considering asking the International Organization for
Standardization to adopt the new guidelines once they have been written.

---

# ACCESSIBILITY

"Disabled Students See Irony At
NCCU"November 10, 2003

DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA--The following
five paragraphs are excerpts from a story in Sunday's Durham Herald-Sun:

Ken Glover and Sylvia Jacobs don't like having to use the back door to
enter the Hoey Administration Building at N.C. Central University, but they
have no choice.

Both are without the use of their legs, and both see the irony of their
restricted access on a campus with NCCU's history.

One day, former NCCU Chancellor Julius Chambers asked Jacobs, an African
history professor who uses a scooter to get around campus, why she never came
to visit his office in the Hoey building. Jacobs asked him if the building was
accessible for her.

"He said, 'yes there's a ramp in the back,'" Jacobs said in recalling
the story.

"I said to him, 'You're a civil rights attorney. For so many years I had
to go to the back because I'm black; now I have to go to the back because I
have a disability.' "

DENVER, COLORADO--The Colorado
Cross-Disability Coalition is suing a fertility clinic, claiming that it
discriminated against a blind woman when it refused to help her become a
mother.

Kijuana Chambers claimed that she went to the Rocky Mountain Women's
Health Care Center three times in 1999 to receive artificial insemination. The
last time she went to the clinic, however, she was told that it was not safe
for her to parent a child because of her disability.

"The doctor treated me like I wanted a new doll for Christmas," Chambers
said. "I had spent two years thinking about this before I made the decision to
have a child."

Chris Miller, the clinic's attorney, said Chambers was not denied
services because of her disability but because she lied.

"When Ms. Chambers first was seen at the center over four years ago, she
reported having a partner and support in helping care for a child," Miller said
in a statement. "Over the next few months she demonstrated behaviors that
caused concern about her ability to safely care for a child."

Miller said Chambers later disclosed that she had nobody to help take
care of a child.

"As a result, the center believed ethically and morally that further
treatment should be delayed until Ms. Chambers was able to provide assurances
that she could safely care for a child alone," Miller said.

Chambers' attorneys said Friday that Miller's statements simply prove
their point that the clinic discriminated against her. They are seeking
unspecified monetary damages.

"A sighted person would not have been asked the same questions," said
co-counsel Scott LaBarre.

Chambers, 33, gave birth to a daughter in January 2001, after she found
another clinic to do the procedure.

---

# EMPLOYMENT

Memphis New Freedom Initiative Conference Is
Pilot For Similar EventsNovember 10, 2003

MEMPHIS,
TENNESSEE--This week, Memphis will host the New Freedom Initiative Conference,
which is designed to help businesses include employees with disabilities in the
workforce.

The conference is considered a pilot for similar events that will be
held across the country.

Organizers told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that the conference has
multiple objectives, including increasing awareness of the abilities of people
with disabilities, along with decreasing the misconceptions that many employers
have about hiring such workers.

WASHINGTON, DC--On
Monday, President Clinton signed a law which allows the Attorney General to
waive the oath of renunciation and allegiance for naturalization of immigrants
who have certain disabilities.

This is good news for the Anaheim, California family of Vijai Rajan, and
the 1,000 other immigrants who qualify to become citizens but have disabilities
that prevent them from reciting the oath of allegiance.

Vijai, 25, has cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, seizures and Crohn's
disease, uses a wheelchair and receives 24-hour care. She cannot recite or
raise her hand to take the oath that the INS requires. Officials also believe
she cannot understand the oath.

Vijai was born in India and brought to the United States as an infant.
When she turned 18, her parents, who both are U.S. citizens, helped her apply
for citizenship. But the application and an appeal were denied by Immigration
and Naturalization Service officials who cited the "applicant's inability to
comprehend the oath of allegiance due to medical certified condition" as the
reason for rejecting the case.

Her case got the attention of California Senator Diane Feinstein and
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who introduced the bill to the Senate in June. A
similar bill was introduced into the House. They were approved last month.

The law does not allow a person with disabilities to automatically
become a citizen, but does allow the Attorney General to waive the oath
requirement.

"Maybe this is God's way of equalizing things," Vijai's father Sunder
Rajan told the Associated Press of the bill referred to as S. 2812.